Maple class - Autumn 2, week 5
Date: 7th Dec 2025 @ 11:14pm
We hope you all made the most of the lovely long weekend last weekend with our two inset days.
This week it was great to welcome so many of you into Maple class for our Christmas Craft afternoon. The children were all so proud of their creations and enjoyed showing us what they had created with you. We practiced our fine motor skills by sewing a Christmas decoration. We carefully sewed around the outside following the holes in the felt. Next we filled the decoration with the stuffing and sewed up the stuffing hole. Finally we chose how we wanted to decorate our felt creations. An adult helped with the glue gun so as the decorations would stick. We also made Christmas wreaths using a paper plate and green card. We decorated them with a ribbon and pompoms to look like berries. We also made clay Christmas decorations. We made the clay into a ball and then rolled it flat. We chose the shape we wanted and cut out our decoration. We had to remember to make a hole for the handing string. Finally we placed a fir leaf on top and pressed it into it to make a pattern.
This week we have been busy practicing the Christmas songs we are singing in Willow’s Nativity. We have been in the hall practicing these with Willow and on Friday did a dress rehearsal in our costumes – we all looked fabulous.
In phonics this week we have practiced reading and writing CVC words with medial ‘i’. We became confident at reading and writing words such as lit, dim, nip, pick, bill. We have also enjoyed playing the Match and Spell game, where we practiced segmenting words and then found the correct graphemes to spell the word.
In Maths we explored weight this week. We had three Christmas presents wrapped up and used language such as heavier and lighter to describe and compare them. We then found our own objects around the classroom to compare.
We have been thinking about the meaning of Christmas and why it is celebrated. We read The Jolly Christmas Postman by Allan Ahlberg and Janet Ahlberg and discussed Christmas cards and why they are sent. The children have enjoyed exploring the small world nativity scene and thinking about all the characters.
During our Explore and Learn time we have enjoyed working together to solve problems in puzzles, using the instruments to tap out the correct number of sounds corresponding to a number flash card, writing Christmas cards, exploring the play dough, creating roles and stories in the role play area, using the small world to create imaginary small world scenes, to name a few activities.
In PE we took part in some SuperMovers sessions - these were focused around PSED. We listened really well and followed instructions. We thought about ways we learn through play, how to stay safe and be happy and also about making good decisions.
We hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to welcoming you into school on Tuesday or Thursday for Willow’s (and Maple supporting) Nativity of Bethlehem Bakeoff.
